


From Sigyn's life

by Keenir



Category: Norse Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How she met Loki, and what she may have been doing before the cave.</p><p><i>Italics within <b>***</b>s</i> are memories and rememberances.<br/><b>Bold within ***s</b> are literary quotes.<br/>(warning:  mentions the death of Narvi)</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Sigyn's life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/gifts).



> 'The peasants were immensely relieved to find that their enemy was slain, and ever after they considered Loki the mightiest of all the heavenly council, for he had delivered them effectually from their foe, while the other gods had lent only temporary aid.'  
> \-- 'Skrymsli and the Peasant's Child'  
> in the book Myths of the Norsemen by Helene A. Guerber.

_Why did Odin ask me to fly over Alfheim and see what I could see?_ Loki wondered as he passed through the air above one of the more cobblestoned-and-empty reaches of the elvish haunts. There was nothing to do here, nothing to rescue or teach a lesson to. Until - _What do I see?_ spying a body seated upon one of the larger and flatter cobbles. At first, he thought it was Odin in the Allfather's frequent guise of an old man wearing many robes and cloaks over a frail frame, with said cloaks sprawled out in this case to cover much of the cobblestone and all identifying features of the individual.

Thus Loki came in for a landing, and transformed back into himself once his feet were on solid ground, and he approached the cloaked one with the caution due both strangers and Odin.

"Hello there," Loki said.

The forwardmost part of the cloak turned, and Loki found himself looking into the face of a woman. _If that is you, Odin, you're doing very much better at looking like a woman of godly or giant ancestry._

"Who sent you?" was what she asked Loki.

 _To reply with 'Did I say I was sent?' would confirm that I was indeed sent,_ Loki knew. "I saw you, found myself curious, and I ended my flight," Loki said with mild flattery.

"Fly away, then," was the entirety of her answer.

"Do I disturb you?"

"No."

Loki frowned.

"And you are not departing," she observed.

"Do you care for riddles?" he asked.

"What I care for, only a Norn bothers with."

_You're good. And, I suspect, not even trying._

"I am Loki."

"I am Sigyn."

 _I know that name. Wait...child of a friend of Hod and Niorn. The friend who -_ "You are _his_ daughter," Loki says.

"I'm flattered you remember."

"Odin's ravens can't catch me. Even if they could, I would never let them rob my mind." _As it was Skadi's request, Odin removed memory of_ him _from the worlds. The Worldtree's squirrel and eagle afforded me shelter during that time._

Sigyn dips her head in gratitude. _My father once existed. Mortally wounded in the war waged between vanir and aesir, he clung to existence as one insect or another until the day when eagles and hawks - transformations of Loki and of Skadi’s father Thiassi - my father landing upon Thiassi’s wing to unbalance him into crashing into the bonfire. My father died well._

 _But my father’s name was destroyed to satisfy Skadi. Odin’s ravens have plucked my father’s name from all nine worlds_ , Sigyn knew.

"Now, what are you doing?" Loki asks.

She smiles to herself.

"I was not trying to be amusing there."

"Pardon," Sigyn says. "That was my reaction to a question I thought when you asked me what I was doing."

"Pray tell what the question was," Loki invites.

"Is it not divinable or deducible what I am doing here, before you interrupted me with conversation?"

"If it were, it wouldn't be as intriguing, I'm sure."

"Flattery won't accomplish anything," she informs him.

"You would be surprised how often that turns into a falsified statement."

In answer, Sigyn returns her attention to the patch of hoarfrost.

"Will you answer me a question, then? Not counting this," Loki says.

"Ask it and see."

"Why is hoarfrost here in a baking alfheim summer?"

"That would require a longer explanation," Sigyn said, feeling that was the best answer.

Loki gave a flourishing bow to her. "I am leaving for a fishing trip with Thor within the day, we'll be calling upon Hymir father of brave Tyr. In the likely event of my survival, I would hope to hear that tale told by you, Sigyn."

*******  
 _Observe! Observe that until the time of Ragnarok, only one of Loki’s children has been killed: Narvi, son of Loki and I, eaten when the aesir gods turned our other son Vali into a hungry wolf. It is not coincidence, that._

_Of all Loki’s other offspring, only his oceanic son Jormungand came at all close to being slain… but Thor was denied the kill._  
 *******

Sigyn was one of Loki's rare visitors as he regained his strength and composure after yet another pregnancy which saved the aesir and vanir gods. "You are not embarassed to be visiting me?" Loki asked.

"Your actions are surely sufficient weyrguild for any subterfuge," she said. "And I don't think Odin is going to be getting rid of that horse of his. Nor would I have reason to be concerned regarding my name, even if Odin himself were looking askance."

"Even Thor watches his tongue when Odin is in a mood," Loki said. _Not that it always stops Thor either._

"Thor has a name."

"Sigyn is a name."

"A name without weight," Sigyn said. "No," her hand forestalling his objection. "I am well aware that my pastwardmindedness has isolated me, has muddied my reputation."

Loki frowned, but held his tongue.

"What?" Sigyn asked.

"I do not believe you _have_ a reputation," he sadly informed her. _Your actions are not recounted in song or saga, no-one writes your words in ogham or rune. Your name lives only in yourself, and in the thoughts of those who know you._

"I am glad. My father was plucked from recall, and I will save others the bother of doing likewise to me."

"You are a strange goddess," Loki said.

"So you and Hod tell me," she said with a chuckle. 

"So what were you about to say regarding your pastmindedness, o fair Sigyn?"

"In the beginning, I know, was when the _void_ , the _abyss_ , great ginnunga gap held sway. When all that existed of the cosmos was frozen Ymir..."

"Yes?" Loki asked when she trailed off.

"I have no foresight, nor would I ever want to have that."

"A rare statement," Loki said.

"I already know I will not survive Ragnarok," Sigyn said.

"But you care if you survive _to_ Ragnarok, yes?"

"No."

"Who do you believe would kill you?" Loki asked her. "I will have words with them."

"That would prove difficult," said an amused Sigyn.

"How is that?"

"I have no sworn enemies - not even Skadi has sworn to kill me."

"Then...?"

"My ‘knowledge’ is founded upon a salient fact: I have no reason to exist in that post-Odin universe; everything I do, is only relevant to this universe. And only the past of it, at that."

"You look into hoarfrost and the meltwaters of that first frozen giant, to find the same knowledge Odin has fought for and given an eye for. You, Sigyn, are a quiet goddess - something uncommon, surely... but your method and craft, make you more unique than Odin's spear and Thor's hammer, as spears and hammers of great power exist in many worlds."

Sigyn looked at him, gamely hiding her amusement long enough to ask the question and hear the response to, "Did you just compare me to Sif's gold wig?"

*******  
 _A cursed few! Some are cursed in their infamy. I was cursed in my infancy. An enemy of my father pronounced that I never shall speak to those who are fleeing, nor to involve myself through actions or spells with those who are fleeing. For so long, that struck us as a boon, an affirmation that I would only associate with those who are courageous and virtuous._

_Only once. Only once in all the time since Loki’s binding and pre Ragnarok, only once has anything born or created entered the cave wherein I sit and Loki is bound. Brave little Thorkill from Midgard, with his band of warriors, desired a proof of their accomplishment - so they attempted to pluck a hair from Loki’s leg. Half his party was slain by the venom of Skadi’s serpent, which redoubled their desire to flee._

_I had not noticed them til then, and the spell of my father’s enemy rendered me unable to speak to or halt them._

_Never since then has anything entered our cave where I sit and Loki is bound._  
 *******

Days or weeks after the binding of Loki and after the couple are left in the cave, Loki turned to her and asked her one question - the only words he would speak during his entire imprisonment: "Why did you come and why are you staying?"

Sigyn said, "Where would I go and what would I do, Loki husband? More of the same as before. This, this is my choice, just as that was."

**Author's Note:**

> 'The gods took over where Vali had left off. They drew out Narvi's entrails and made their way to the cave. Loki's faithful wife, Sigyn, went with them, sorrowing over the fate of her two sons, the fate of her husband.'  
> \-- 'The Norse Myths' by Kevin Crossley-Holland.


End file.
